A young woman with an unshakable faith in the Immaculate Conception awaits celestial instruction while living in a treehouse at the back of a friend’s home. A failed artist whose deepest desires are only ever revealed to her in the dreams which she never remembers. A wise woman who lives in a red car. A domestic worker whose daily experience of atrocity forms the fabric of her life. And the King whose chest is home to a bird of paradise. “Exquisitely crafted tale by a talented writer … stylish, sensual and lyrical.” - Marita van der Vyver_ “Lily sucks in her stomach. Halfway between chunky and plump, she thinks gloomily as she turns around and notices that she is developing another pocket of fat at the base of her neck. A thickening that reminds her of yoked cattle. She pulls her faded green kimono from its hook and slips it on, wondering if Ina still wears her red one; long-ago gifts from their mother. At least Raktim loves her curves, she thinks; the softness of her belly and her full breasts. And recently she read somewhere that fat women in Mauritania are desirable status symbols, some even force-fed from puberty, like geese for pâté.”